The two letters to the editor that appeared under the heading “The Congressman and the Mosque” in the Oct. 20 issue truly baffle and disappoint me. The writers chose to criticize us at Temple Beth-El of Great Neck, who have been holding dialogues and joint programs with the people of the Islamic Center of Long Island for 15 years.

Of course we know the danger Islamic militants represent here and abroad. The mindless fundamentalism that leads to violence among all religious groups, including Jews who want to drive Arab citizens out of Israel, is a grave threat to security, justice and decency. But the members of the Westbury mosque and their leaders are not extremists. They are physicians, attorneys, professors, business people and mothers and fathers, grandparents and children. They came to America in search of freedom, not to destroy our way of life. They come to our synagogue and we to their mosque to learn about each other’s backgrounds and faith, to build bridges of understanding.

Rep. Peter King’s accusation, which both letter writers embrace, charging that the Long Island mosque’s people are a threat to American democracy, a charge without foundation and calculated to instill fear, is itself as hostile to the democratic spirit as was Sen. [Joseph] McCarthy and his use of character assassination and guilt by association. We are to believe King that 85 percent of American mosques are “fostering terror” and thus the ICLI must be one of them? Where is the evidence? What demagoguery.

As for Dr. Faroque Khan and other mosque leaders not speaking out against Islamic violence, that is totally untrue. From our pulpit, in statements to the press that were either ignored or buried, Khan has denounced the violence of radical Islamic militants. The ICLI issued a condemnation of the attacks of 9/11 and thanked “President George W. Bush … and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani for making clear distinctions between terrorists and the peaceful tenets of Al-Islaam.” I hope Wiesenfeld, Schwartz and their like-minded friends will do the same.

Surprise! Muslim-Jewish dialogue ends in another fight. (“Muslim-Jewish Dialogue Hits Unbreachable Wall,” Nov. 3) They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results each time. If this is the case, than Rabbi [Marc] Schneier is clinically insane.

How many different ways must Muslims hit us before we come to the realization that they not only don’t like us, but would love to kill us?

Yes, the occasional Muslim is progressive enough to see Jews as people, but the vast majority of them see us as an abomination — a people who usurped their land. No amount of “Kumbaya” will change that.

I read The Jewish Week for the first time the other day. I enjoyed it. There was a lot in it that interested and entertained me. I also disagreed with a lot of the views expressed. So thus far, you’d have to say, I’m a fan.

But I also have a quarrel with the paper’s central premise. You know — the Jewish bit. How shall I explain this?

First off, you should know that I am an Irish-born British journalist, who worked for years for papers such as the Irish Times, the Financial Times and the London Sunday Times. I have lived in a number of European countries, as well as the United States, and once worked for seven months in Tel Aviv as correspondent for the Financial Times.

Anyway, the thing is, I like nations and cultures being different. I think we should celebrate difference. But I positively hate it when ethnic and religious difference gets in the way of people leading “normal” lives and encourages the belief that others aren’t as good, or important, as “we” are ­— whoever “we” are.

Maybe being Jewish is like having two jobs. By day, you work hard at being Jewish; then at night you moonlight by going to synagogue and Hebrew classes.There doesn’t seem to be any relief from it — not, at any rate, to judge by the pages of The Jewish Week. Why is this?

If life is all about being Jewish, then is being Jewish all there is to life? I think not. But how many in the community would honestly agree with me?

Jews need to lighten up. Contrary to what some might think, they are not overtly special people. They’re like anybody else, with as many representatives of the good, the bad and the ugly as the Irish, the Italians, the Arabs or anybody else. It’s one thing (God knows) to be religious, but when your religion, and all that goes with it, including an obsession with the State of Israel, becomes all you think about or care about, what’s left of your shared humanity?

Israel is a tight-knit nation that’s had a hard time. The Jews are a tight-knit people who’ve had it even harder. I think everybody’s got that. But the sun doesn’t rise or set exclusively on the Negev. The sun shines on all of us equally.

Regarding Gary Rosenblatt’s column, “Should We Be Helping Israeli Arabs?” (Oct. 20), one startling piece of information was omitted from this otherwise solid presentation of the debate. This is the fact that Israeli Arabs were apparently not willing to criticize Hezbollah in the recent war — even as Israeli Arabs were being killed.

As the authors of the upcoming article in the American Jewish Year Book on the size of the Jewish population of the United States in 2006, we would like to acknowledge the important help given to us by the United Jewish Communities (UJC) research department, particularly by Laurence

Kotler-Berkowitz and Jonathan Ament.

The article, “Jewish Pride On The Rise” (Oct. 27), suggested that UJC had made significant personnel changes in its research department. Once the 2000-01 National Jewish Population Survey had been completed, the

department’s staff was reduced; they simply needed fewer people. Our perception, however, is that UJC continues to be committed to funding and supporting social science research that can be utilized to improve

the functioning of the organized American Jewish community.

I wanted to commend The Jewish Week and contributor, Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses on her article “In God’s Image, And Simply Divine” (Sabbath Week, Oct. 20).

The Jewish Week has been instrumental in the past in addressing issues that have been swept under the rug, and this is another one of those issues. It is too rare that an honest discussion of learning disabilities occurs in our community, and Rabbi Cohler-Esses shows great courage in sharing her family’s story. I know because my family finds itself in much the same place, and we too have made the decision to send our sons to secular special education schools where their academic, social and emotional needs can be best addressed.

While I thank God every day for the wisdom that enabled my family to make the difficult decision to send our children to non-Jewish private schools, I feel it imperative that the Jewish community ask whether we are doing all we can for all of our children.

Lara Friedman and Ori Nir of Americans for Peace Now seem to think that Israel’s removal of outposts may promote peace (“Israel Must Uproot Illegal Settlements,” Opinion, Oct. 27). But have Israel’s major concessions, such as giving away half of Judea and Samaria, all of Gaza and forcibly removing 9,000 Jews from their homes, brought any measure of peace?

Despite these concessions, thousands of Israelis have been killed and maimed by Palestinian terrorists, rockets from Gaza hit Israel every day, soldiers are kidnapped and Hezbollah’s unprovoked war was launched. Any further gesture to the Hamas/Palestinian Authority (PA) regime will only be interpreted as weakness and a reward for terror, which can only encourage more terror.

Peace Now should be promoting actions that will really promote peace, like the PA fulfilling its 13-year-old Oslo commitments to end incitement to hatred and murder against Jews and Israel in the PA-controlled media, schools and youth camps; arresting, jailing and extraditing terrorists; putting Israel on its maps and renaming the schools, streets and sports teams that are currently named for suicide bombers.

Stephen Steinlight’s insightful article opposing the Senate-Bush Administration “comprehensive” immigration scheme is exactly right. (“Immigration Policy: Bad For U.S. And Jews,” Opinion, Nov. 3).

The Senate-Bush plan is supported by special-interest elites (including Big Business and Big Unions). Corporate interests want cheap labor, and unions want new recruits. Meanwhile, the majority of Americans subsidize the massive health care and educational costs of these low-skilled workers. The wages of many African-American and other native-born working-class people would be undercut by the Senate bill.

Also, the Senate bill weakens our national security by actually preventing local law enforcement from checking the immigration status of traffic violators. Remember, four of the 9/11 terrorists were stopped for speeding by local police, but unfortunately, their illegal immigration status was never checked, although it could have been at that time.

In reading the article about the amazing growth of Rabbi Marc Schneier’s New York Synagogue (“Hampton Shul Affiliate Buys N.Y. Building For $24 Million,” Nov. 3), I noticed his claim that the renovation of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society’s building is the “first Ashkenazic Orthodox” congregation to build its own building in Manhattan in the last 50 years.

For the record, the Lincoln Square Synagogue (L.S.S.) built its own building, in Manhattan, in 1971. We, at the thriving L.S.S., which, under the dynamic leadership of Rabbi Shaul Robinson, continues to serve as a model for synagogues throughout the world, wish the New York Synagogue great success in remodeling its new home, and in its important and holy work.

In your article, “Big Stage for Chazanut” (Oct. 20), my co-founder of Cantors World, Cantor Benny Rogosnitzky, was quoted saying, “No cantor has ever performed at the Met.” I want to clarify that no cantor has ever performed as a cantor, singing solely liturgical music for an entire evening, at the Met. We certainly recognize that outstanding tenors Richard Tucker and Jan Peerce had distinguished careers at the Met. However, they performed in operatic roles, not as cantors singing liturgical music. Listeners to my radio programs that I’ve hosted since 1977 are well aware of the fact that over the years I have played Richard Tucker and Jan Peerce singing prayers and Yiddish selections. In fact, Tucker’s “Kiddush for Shabbos” and “Rozhinkes Mit Mandlin” and Peerce’s “Shema Yisroel” and “Es Brent” are among my favorites. Our Dec. 3 event will be historic in that a single cantor, Cantor Yitzchok Meir Helfgot, will perform liturgical selections at the Met solo, accompanied by members of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.